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Teaching your dog interesting dog tricks is a fun but uphill task. Dogs do not understand human speech, and as behavioral creatures you need to make sure that your timing in your trick training is as close to perfect as possible, to ensure that your dog is able to learn the tricks correctly. If you have ever tried trick training before, you recognize the importance of the clicker and how it can improve your ability to train your dog or puppy. However, even with the clicker, tricks can be tough to learn, so here are a few tips for improving the success of your trick training.

Basic Command Learning Tips

1. Mix Up a New Trick With an Old Trick

As soon as it appears that your dog understands its new trick, mixing it up with another command that your dog already knows is a good way to help your dog recognize the differences between the two tricks. For example, say you have taught your dog to turn in a circle using the “Turn” command, and you are trying to teach your dog to bow on command using the “Bow” command.

As soon as it appears that your dog is learning “Bow,” try saying “Turn” and then only after your dog turns, say “Bow” again. This will help your dog understand that Bow is a command that you expect your dog to answer in any situation, and it will help associate the behavior with the command more easily. If you do not do this, then your dog may bow often, but not necessarily due to the verbal command you are giving it.

1. Try the Tricks Outside and/or With Distractions

Dogs can learn indoors very easily. There are no distractions, you are the person they want to pay attention to anyway, and they have all of the freedom in the world to think. But when there are distractions, or when they are outside, they do not have that same focus, and it is more difficult to get them to do a trick. However, if you take them outside and teach them the trick outside as well, or add a bunch of distractions in a room and continue to reinforce the trick, your dog will learn to focus in those situations as well.

1. Vary the Ratio For Longer Lasting Tricks

Once your dog has learned the trick, take the clicker away and start varying how often you give them the reward for doing the trick. Dogs that are rewarded at random times are more likely to continue to do the trick for longer, even without a reward. Ideally, you want your dog to continue to do the trick for months or years, but if your dog expects a treat every time, then if your dog stops receiving a treat it will stop doing the trick. If you dog never knows when a treat is coming, it will continue to perform the behavior for longer.

Reinforcing Your Tricks to Help Your Dog Learn

Each of these tips is designed to help make your trick training more effective. They should work well with the clicker training that you already use, because they are helpful for getting your dog to truly recognize the command and focus on the behavior you are hoping to achieve. If you are able to combine these tips with effective clicker training, chances are you will be able to easily get your dog to not only learn these tricks, but keep performing them for longer periods of time in almost all situations.

By Dr. Jan Bellows

Those that understand dog training recognize that positive reinforcement is not only the most pleasurable form of dog training, but easily the most effective. Rewarding your dog for its good behaviors has time and again proven itself to be the only truly effective method for training dogs.

On the flip side, positive punishment (striking your dog for poor behaviors) is completely ineffective. Dogs that are hit or otherwise punished rarely understand what the desired behavior should be, so the end result is a dog that is now both confused and abused.

However, though positive punishment may be completely ineffective, “negative punishment” has its uses when it comes to obedience training your pet. It does not have the same results as positive reinforcement, but it is a good way to make sure your dog stays well behaved, and it is neither cruel nor painful to your pet.

What is Negative Punishment?

Negative punishment is when you take away something your dog likes in order to punish your pet. An example with children would be taking away your child’s dessert because they did not finish their vegetables. Dogs recognize when good things have been taken away from them, and they start to recognize the behaviors that they need to exhibit to continue to enjoy their activities.

Tips for Using Negative Punishment

Negative punishment is a useful tool for training your dog, but in order to work effectively it must be used correctly. Here are several tips for how to utilize negative punishment effectively in order to get the behaviors you desire.

• Negative punishment is how you teach what “no” means. Before you perform the negative punishment action, say “no” firmly so that your dog recognizes that when it hears that command, whatever it is doing is an unwanted behavior and the object is likely to be taken away from it.
• Negative punishment is most effective when an alternative behavior is immediately presented. For example, if your dog is chewing on your chair, it is likely enjoying itself. Move your dog away from the chair (negative punishment) and immediately provide it with something it CAN chew, such as a toy rope. Your dog will learn that chewing on the rope is a good replacement behavior.
• You also want to try to combine negative punishment with positive reinforcement whenever possible. If your dog is on its leash and about to go for an enjoyable walk, and then it starts performing an unwanted behavior like barking loudly, you simply take the leash off and walk away (removing the good thing – going outside – from your dog). However, as soon as your dog sis silent again, then you can put the leash back on and take your dog for the walk, rewarding it for its better behavior.

Negative punishment is not the most effective training method alone, but dogs understand it quite a bit – especially with regard to obedience and reducing unwanted behaviors. Dogs will learn to understand the “no” command and what behaviors they can replace it with in order to enjoy themselves in an uninterrupted manner. While it still should be paired with positive reinforcement whenever possible, negative punishment is still a good way to get your dog to understand what is and is not okay in your household.

In addition, taking items away from your dog that it is enjoying continues to help your dog recognize that it is the subordinate in the pack, and at any point you can take away the good things in its life, helping establish yourself as pack leader.

By Dr. Jan Bellows

Dogs are extremely behavioral creatures. The principles of behavioral psychology play an incredible role in how a dog is trained. However, only certain aspects of behavioral training are effective with dogs, while others are considerably less effective.

The main behavioral principle use for training dogs is known as “operant conditioning.” Operant conditioning is when you reward or punish based on a behavior your dog exhibited in order to get a desired behavior (either by continuing the good behavior or altering the bad behavior). There are two aspects of operant conditioning – reinforcement and punishment. Reinforcement is when you want a behavior to continue, while punishment is used when you would like a new behavior.

In addition, these two principles are broken up into 4 separate types. The four types of operant conditioning are as follows:

-          Positive Reinforcement – Giving your pet a treat or affection when they perform a good behavior that you like. For example, if your pet sits on the “sit” command, and you give it a treat, that is positive reinforcement.

-          Negative Reinforcement – Taking away something that is harming your pet to make your pet happier. For example, if your pet whines when it has a thorn in its foot, you take the thorn out and now your pet knows it SHOULD whine whenever it has a thorn in its food. It is called “negative’ because something is taken away, even though the end result is positive for your dog.

-          Positive Punishment – The “Giving” of any form of punishment, such as hitting your pet or yelling at it loudly after it performs an unwanted behavior.

-          Negative Punishment – Taking away something your dog likes as a form of punishment. For example, if your dog is chewing on your shoe, and you take away your shoe, that would be negative punishment – you have punished your dog by taking away something good.

Positive reinforcement is known to be the most effective form of dog training. Perhaps more interesting is that positive punishment (hitting or striking your dog after an incorrect behavior) is far and away the least effective form of training. While your dog may be a little less likely to do the behavior, it does not understand what behavior it should be doing, so it will simply replace it with an equally bad behavior. An example is a dog that is hit for peeing on the carpet. The dog will know that urinating was wrong, but not know how to replace it, so rather than learn to urinate outside, it will simply try to hide its urination from you and go in places where it cannot be caught. These dogs also often suffer from self esteem issues that can lead to other behavioral problems.

Negative punishment, on the other hand, is an effective way of training dogs – though not as effective as positive reinforcement. Negative reinforcement is moderately effective, but there are rarely opportunities to use it effectively, making it relatively irrelevant (though it should be noted that a dog that whines in order to get out of its crate, only to be released due to the whining, will whine more because they have been negatively reinforced – the bad thing, being in the crate, was taken away).

Understanding Dog Behavior

For obvious reasons, it is cruel to hit or strike your pet when it misbehaves. Still, perhaps more interesting is that not only is it cruel – it is also an incredibly ineffective training method. Dogs that are punished rarely learn how to respond to the punishment correctly, and often their behaviors continue to degrade over time. They may also fear for the punishment and rarely display any positive behaviors around you, fearing your anger rather than seeking your approval.

If you are training your dog, remember to stick to positive reinforcement, as well as negative punishment when necessary. Positive punishment never works, and negative reinforcement is uncommon and generally unused in dog training.

By Dr. Jan Bellows

Whether you got your pet from the pound of from a breeder, some dogs naturally show aggression to other dogs. This can occur for a variety of reasons:

-          Your dog has a bad experience with another dog in the past.

-          Your dog was not properly socialized and did not learn to be used to other dogs.

-          Your dog may be a breed that is wary of other dogs.

-          Your dog may have been trained to treat other dogs poorly, or rewarded for poor behavior.

Whatever the cause of your dog’s poor behavior towards other dogs that aggression is something that needs to be stopped. The more aggression your dog shows to other dogs, the more situations may occur where your dog injures another dog, or gets into a fight with a dog and ends up injuring itself. Dogs that show this type of aggression are dangerous to other pets and difficult for their owners, and it is important to work hard to reduce dog aggression behaviors.

Tips for Reducing Dog Aggression

Reducing dog aggression towards other dogs is a step by step process. Your dog is used to the idea of showing aggression. It may never be able to be “friends” with other dogs because it does not feel a connection between them. But, at the very least, it can stop being a danger and ignore the canines around it.

It should also be noted that dog aggression can come from both fear and from issues with dominance. Though both need to be treated the same way, it should be noted that a dog that is aggressive towards other dogs may simply be fearing for its own safety.

• The first step is to carry a great deal of treats with you that your dog loves. As soon as you notice a strange dog coming toward you, have your dog sit or lay down and continue feeding them treats until the other dog has completely passed from view. This first step is designed to train your dog to ignore other dogs when they pass by.
• The next step is to teach your dog to happy at the sight of other dogs. Once your dog has become used to other dogs passing with treats, you should start rewarding your dog for the appearance of these strange dogs. When your dog looks at the strange dog, that is when you immediately give your dog a treat. Every time your dog looks over at the other dog, you provide your dog with a treat. The first step was to get your dog to ignore other dogs, while this step is designed to get your dog to be glad another dog is in view.
• The final step involves finding a friend with a sturdy and friendly dog to walk towards your dog in an enclosed area. While you are feeding your dog treats, you should have your friend slowly bring their dog towards you, all the while giving your dog enough treats to keep them occupied. Once the other dog has been brought to you, you should feed both of them treats in front of each other until both dogs are right next to each other, eating treats from the ground.

Each of these steps is not immediate. You should do each step multiple times before you move on, ensuring that your dog understands the purpose of the step before you have taken on the next one. Once you are seeing positive behaviors from your dog, especially any time of friendliness to other dogs, you should reward your pet for its good behavior by showering it with praise and affection. Over time your dog will learn to enjoy the presence of other dogs, and while not all dogs will play with other dogs, at the very least the behavioral issues will become a thing of the past.